Poetry Slam
by ehrl-tree3
Summary: Blaine's senior year. Blaine has joined a poetry club. Sebastian can't see why anyone would willingly take part in such asshattery.


Blaine Anderson sighed flicking through the records on display, and pulled his scarf tighter around his neck. He wasn't looking for anything specific, but the ambience of the music shop always drew him inside whether needed sheet music or not. There was just something about the feel of vinyl and crisp inked paper that was comforting. Besides, it wasn't as if he had anywhere important to be at the moment... or even this entire week. He glumly tucked a songbook he'd been rifling through back onto the sales rack and checked his watch. 4:00pm. Tina was visiting Mike for the weekend and he'd be alone and bored for the entirety of her absence.

There were still hours before he had to be home. Hours of freedom- and when did he ever have that? Maybe he'd visit the yogurt shop later. He grinned happily to himself revelling in thoughts of shovelling empty calories into his mouth and having no math homework to do. It wasn't all bad. So enough moping! he scolded himself. Today was going to be awesome.

He looked around the quiet empty store and exhaled gently.

Stacking a pile of sheet music onto his already teetering pile, he made his way to the front of the store. The man at the checkout watched with usual exasperation as he casually tried to push the huge pile towards him. "Again?!" the guy shook his head, smiling. "Your home must look like Between the Sheets." Blaine ducked a little, flushing. He had begun to frequent the music store on the high street for some time now. This one was also well-stocked, also peculiarly named (Strings and Things). The boy behind the cash register (Bill Wendsdale, according to his name-tag) was equally as handsome. But unlike their rival store, they did not play host to the after school bustle of theatre nerds and glee kids lining up to spend their lunch money. You might not think it, but Blaine liked the quiet. Boisterousness was for the stage. Off-stage was where he observed others and meditated and tried to settle into his still-new public-school skin.

He fiddled with his bow tie as his items were rung up.

Bill glanced up.

"That's a nice one." He noted

It was actually. Deep maroon, crushed velvet, reversible. Blaine had agonised over choosing it. It had literally begging him to pick it up, looking so soft and neat on its display rack.

Casual flirting. He was unsure of how to respond for a moment.

"Better than the strawberry-print one?" he twitched an eyebrow and gave a carefully small lop-sided smile. Apparently he was teasing and quasi-sophisticated today, Blaine noted, somewhat surprised. He supposed that there was no harm in being semi-flirtatious. Especially with a man as beautiful as this one. His eyes skimmed over the shape of his mouth and soft eye-lashes and felt a little sad. Flirting always made him a little sad nowadays. Which was ridiculous, because this shit used to come to him so easily. Now it just reminded him of the rubbed-raw place in his heart where Kurt used to be. Smiles and shoulder-squeezes took twice the amount of effort. Flirting was just acting now. An exercise. _Use your instrument_, _use it_ _every opportunity you have._

The bell tinkled as he exited the store.

Sebastian shrieked.

"MOTTA!"

Sugar paused, a fork of egg noodles suspended halfway between her mouth and her plate. She looked up, bristling to find that someone had waltzed in on her brunch unannounced, like a tall, bitchy hurricane .

"Jeez, what the hell now, Count Crackerjack? Can't you see I'm busy?"

"That can wait, look at this." Sebastian slammed a tatty piece of paper down on the table. mussed pompadour quivering in fury. He looked like he'd been recently dragged through a hedge backwards.

Sugar glowered at him.

"I'm _eating_ here, skankzilla." She said sweetly. "Get your garbage away from my wasabi dispenser. My dad could totally publically disgrace your dad for that."

Sebastian rolled his eyes impatiently.

"It's just wasabi. Fuck off."

Sugar crowded her lunch away from Sebastian.

"So what do you want?"

"Look." Sebastian said insistently. "It's a leaflet for an amateur poetry slam"

Sugar stared at him.

"And?"

"_And_ I found the freaking _signup_ sheet, that's what."

"And did you find the signup sheet in the dumpster, or..."

Sebastian clicked his tongue. "I got into a scuffle with the captain of the poetry club. He said he needed it for admin or some bullshit."

Sugar patted his arm now assured of the fact that he hadn't been dumpster diving. "Of course you did." She said exasperatedly. "But I'm sort of missing the whole point of your showing me this..."

"Blaine!" Sebastian expounded. He lowered his voice conspiratorially "He's signed up for the poetry slam. He's already back to basement level with Glee club and freaking _Mathletes_. It's like he doesn't care about his rep."

"Artie's on here too."

"Yes. And Blaine."

Sugar shrugged. "It's his rep. It's our senior year. Let him have his nerdy fun. He deserves it. He's been a bit morose in Glee lately. It's been a downer actually. If he needs to emo it up in front of a bunch of other emos, then why the heck shouldn't he?"

Sebastian shook his head. "People used to respect him at Dalton, he was their freaking prize cow. He had edge. And when I met him I could see why... The guy was like a magnet. He was like this bright light. I was like the moon or a black hole. That's why they kicked me out."

"They kicked you out because your dad thought you needed to slum it for a year in public school." Sugar reminded him. "He has _hella_ sway with the school governors. He could have kept you there if he wanted."

She paused

"As for Blaine, I think we just need to give him some space."

Sebastian sighed "I don't know, Motta. It's like he's disappearing."

He crumpled the paper, shoved it deep into his pocket, and helped himself to a roll.

Blaine let himself into his house.

"Hello?"

No response. They were probably working late again.

He toed off his shoes and retrieved several college prospectuses from his bag, a rhyming dictionary, his iPod, and a tub of raspberry swirl ice-cream. His neck was itching to breathe too, so he loosened his tie and left it on the sideboard.

He was halfway up the plush carpeted staircase before deciding to take his phone up too. He'd call up Artie later and see if he wanted to talk. And Cooper too.

Finally cloistered within his room, he closed the door on himself. Flipping through his prospectuses took the best part of 2 hours. Finishing his homework took one.

He never got around to calling anyone.

Later that night he dreamed of silvery butterfly cocoons hanging from dew-soaked stems.


End file.
